PMIWDC

Finding Our Way Through the Gray

In today’s society people are very sensitive to ethical
conduct in business, and the reason is because we’ve been lost in a
gray area where right and wrong are muddled behind corporate agendas.
Bloomberg’s Businessweek’s article, Wall
Streets’ Economic Crimes Against Humanity reveals just how
lost in the gray we are. In this article, the authors define what led
up to the mortgage crisis as a “…widespread abrogation of individual
moral judgment.”

So how does an entire industry of professionals who are smart,
dedicated, and most likely good individuals, allow for the financial
ruin of millions of lives in the form of bankruptcies and loss of
pensions? It comes down to the classic debate – are humans inherently
good or evil?

If you’re on John Locke’s side, you think that mankind is
fundamentally good when left to its own devices. If you’re on the
Thomas Hobbes side of the debate, you lean more towards believing that
people are selfish and evil, with self-interest guiding most of their
decisions.

While I lean more towards Locke’s sentiments, I think that the biggest
problem we face is disassociation. If “good” people are able to
disassociate themselves from the results of their actions, they will
have no feelings of wrongdoing, and therefore can justify their
actions. This is where the ethical “gray area” comes in. When a
corporation’s actions lead to corporate gain at the expense of the
general populace’s loss, you need to look at the ethics behind it all.

We have seen a rise in corporate scandals in recent years. According to
CNN Money, the number of fraud cases investigated by the Securities and
Exchange Commission jumped 41 percent in the last three years, which
resulted in tens of million of dollars in fines to settle the charges.
The mentality of “success at all costs” has become so entrenched in
companies, particular publicly traded companies, that professionals are
breaching their own moral codes in order to be financially successful.

Because of this murky gray area of “good” versus “evil” and
“accountability” versus “disassociation,” it is crucial for
professionals in every level of business be trained in the practices of
ethics, transparency, and accountability.

Project Management and Ethics

The Project Management Institute (PMI) provides a simple
ethics code of conduct guidance, and suggests that a project manager’s
first step at being ethical is in accepting responsibility for
decisions and consequences. This is the first step in breaking the
dissociation affliction that leads to good people practicing unethical
behavior.

PMI goes further by saying the PMs need to respect others, be honest in
communication, listen and provide feedback in an objective manner, and
be fair and transparent in decision making.

The thing about ethics is that they’re hard to measure. As project
managers, we want to measure as much as we can – it’s in our DNA. But
how do you measure something so intangible as being ethical?

PMI recognizes this difficulty and therefore has created two codes of
conduct: Aspirational and Mandatory Conduct. While Mandatory
standards establish firm requirements that can lead to disciplinary
action if not followed, Aspirational conduct is the more immeasurable
standard that project management practitioners should strive to uphold.

If you’ve seen the movie “Office Space,” think back to the scene when
Jennifer Aniston’s character is working at a restaurant called
Chotskies. At Chotskies, management required you to wear a certain
amount of “flair” – which are these big buttons that are supposed to
exemplify your personality. Her character makes a big scene because she
only wants to wear the minimum required buttons and doesn’t understand
why her boss is upset about that.

While the scene is amusing and slightly mocking towards
excessive “flair,” what it also shows is that successful employees who
are moving up in the Chotskies restaurant are wearing more than the
minimum, because it’s not about maintaining status quo to them, it’s
about a lifestyle.

In real life the people who go above and beyond what is required are
the ones that succeed. So put on your ethical flair buttons PMs! The
more the better. If you do the bare minimum (just the mandatory) it
will be transparent to anyone who works with you.

PMI®’s Role Delineation Study & Exam Changes

In August of 2011 PMI changed approximately 30% of the PMP®
exam based on updates to the professional role of a PMP® found by PMI’s
Role Delineation Study (RDS). One of the biggest changes in
the exam was the Professional and Social Responsibility content area
(Domain 6) was to be tested in every domain rather than as a separate
domain on the examination. This change mean that PMI’s Code
of Ethics and Professional Conduct should be viewed as integrated into
the day-to-day role of project managers.

Is it any coincidence that this RDS study came about in 2011, just two
years after Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scam was uncovered? And just three
years after the 2007 mortgage crisis began hitting the economy with the
brutal reality that we had been duped? In this tough economy people
wanted to know how we are going to improve the ethical standards,
accountability and transparency in business. PMI’s RDS answered that
question.

More than 3,000 PMPs from 97 countries contributed to the RDS. These
PMPs were responsible for bringing their perspective on how the
profession is evolving as far as knowledge, skills, and abilities.

And what did this mean for PMP exam candidates? Professionals taking
the PMP exam after August 2011 had to be prepared to answer ethical
questions that demonstrated their understanding of how to live within
the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct in their daily work as a PM.

What this change did is switch the thinking for exam takers. Rather
than viewing the ethics questions as a separate section, they now had
to view them as part of every section and inseparably from each domain.
This adaptation brings home the importance that ethical standards have
on today’s society. We don’t want to put up with the bare minimum
anymore. We want our project managers accountable, transparent, and
ethical in everything that they do, day in and day out.

Above and Beyond

Beyond what PMI has already done with the exam to highlight
the importance of ethical standards, what can be done to ensure that
those you work with are living up to not just the mandatory, but
aspirational standards of conduct? It all starts with you.

As a leader in the PM profession, others look up to you as for
leadership and example setting. Make sure you are setting the right
tone in your place of work. You can do this by being open and honest,
even when it’s hard and may make you look bad. This also means holding
yourself to the highest ethical standards in each and every situation,
not just when it’s convenient.

Beyond leading by example, you can convey what’s expected of those you
work with via written guidelines. While PMI offers a fantastic Code of
Ethics and Professional Conduct, sometimes it can help to have
guidelines that are more specific to your particular company or
industry.

Say for instance that you work in a consulting company, and
every so often in your consulting you come across proprietary
information within the company you’re consulting as a course of
business. In this specific situation, what protocol can your
company decide on that makes it easy for employees to adhere to ethical
standards?

Once you have your code of ethics in place, how will this be enforced?
One of the most important aspects of having a code of ethics is
implementing a safe and effective way for people to report breaches in
the code. If people feel like their whistle blowing might be
overlooked, discouraged, or even result in their termination, they most
likely will hesitate to report a questionable issue that they
see.

Ensure that your reporting system is utilizing an objective
third party who does not have any influence over the job security of
the employees.

Whether you convey your ethical standards by example, in writing, or
better yet by doing both, make sure that you make ethics a clear
priority in your organization. This means that you will not sacrifice
ethical behavior in favor of other business initiatives such as
increasing profits, closing a deal, or being the top in your industry.
When you convey this message very clearly, people will match their
priorities to that of the organizations and make sure the ethical
behavior is the only way to conduct business.

Get out of the Gray!

Do you want to get more involved in the ongoing conversation
surrounding project management and ethics? Join PMI’s Ethics in Project
Management Community of Practice. In this community you can join
members to further examine topics such as the role of ethics in project
management, and the relationship of ethics in project management to
other industries, interest, or knowledge areas. Become apart of the
ethical movement and get out of the gray today!

About the Author

Michelle LaBrosse, PMP®, CEO, Cheetah Learning LLC (PMI® REP)

Michelle LaBrosse, PMP, is an entrepreneurial powerhouse
with a penchant for making success easy, fun and fast. She is the
founder of Cheetah Learning,
the author
of the Cheetah
Success Series, and a prolific blogger whose mission
is to bring Project Management to the masses.

Cheetah Learning is a virtual company with 100 employees, contractors,
and licensees worldwide. To date, more than 30,000 people have become
“Cheetahs” using Cheetah Learning’s innovative Project Management and
accelerated learning techniques.

Recently honored by the Project Management Institute (PMI®), Cheetah
Learning was named Professional Development Provider of the Year at the
2008 PMI® Global Congress. A dynamic keynote speaker and industry
thought leader, Michelle was previously recognized by PMI as one of the
25 Most Influential Women in Project Management in the world.

Michelle’s articles have appeared in over 100 publications and web
sites around the world. Her monthly column, the Know How Network
is carried by over 400 publications, and her monthly newsletter goes
out to more than 50,000 people.

She is a graduate of the Harvard Business School’s Owner President
Manager’s (OPM) program and also holds engineering degrees from
Syracuse University and the University of Dayton.

Note: this article reflects the viewpoint of the author, Michelle LaBrosse, PMP®, CEO, Cheetah Learning LLC (PMI® REP), and does not necessarily represent the views of PMIWDC. If you disagree with or object to the views expressed here, please let us know

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